I got imprisoned for rock and roll. Andrzej Stasiuk and the Literature of Periphery
Krzysztof Gajewski Institute of Literary Research Polish Academy of Science
Warsaw/New York, 15 April 2021
1 / 64 Table of Contents
Andrzej Stasiuk. An Introduction
Literature of periphery
Forms of periphery in the work of Stasiuk Biographical periphery Social periphery Political periphery Cultural periphery
2 / 64 Andrzej Stasiuk. An Introduction
3 / 64 Andrzej Stasiuk
4 / 64 USA Poland
• la Pologne, c'est-à-dire nulle part (Alfred Jarry, Ubu the King, 1888) • Poland, "that is to say nowhere"
5 / 64 Andrzej Stasiuk bio
Andrzej Stasiuk born on Sept., 25th, 1960 in Warsaw 6 / 64 Warsaw in the 1960.
7 / 64 Warsaw in the 1960.
8 / 64 Warsaw in the 1960.
9 / 64 Warsaw in the 1960.
10 / 64 Warsaw in the 1960.
11 / 64 Andrzej Stasiuk bio
attended Professional High School of Car Factory in Warsaw
12 / 64 Andrzej Stasiuk bio
1985 anti-communist Freedom and Peace Movement
13 / 64 Andrzej Stasiuk literary debut (1989?)
14 / 64 Andrzej Stasiuk, Prison is hell
These two words in English are one of the most frequ- ently performed tattoos in Polish prisons.1
1Andrzej Stasiuk, Prison is hell, Warsaw 1989? 15 / 64 Andrzej Stasiuk bio
since 1990 publishing poetry and prose in Po prostu, bruLion, Czas Kultury, Magazyn Literacki, Tygodnik Powszechny and others
16 / 64 Andrzej Stasiuk in 1994
Andrzej Stasiuk in 1994: He doesn't have any special beliefs. Smokes a lot
17 / 64 Andrzej Stasiuk bio
1986 left Warsaw and settled in the mountains Low Beskids: Czarne 18 / 64 Low Beskids Czarne
19 / 64 Low Beskids Czarne
20 / 64 Beskid Niski - Czarne
St. Dimitri Ortodox Church, 1783-1993 at Czarne
21 / 64 Andrzej Stasiuk bio
with his wife, Monika Sznajderman, and his daughter, Antonina in 1999
22 / 64 Andrzej Stasiuk decorations
2005 decorated with the Silver Medal Merit to Culture Gloria Artis
23 / 64 Andrzej Stasiuk bio
2015 became the artistic director of the Zygmunt Haupt Festival
24 / 64 Andrzej Stasiuk bio
2018 musical group Haydamaky, album Mickiewicz, Stasiuk, Haydamaky
25 / 64 Literary works of Andrzej Stasiuk
1. Prison is hell, 1989 2. Mury Hebronu, 1992 3. Wiersze miªosne i nie, 1994 4. Biaªy kruk, 1995 5. Opowie±ci galicyjskie, 1995 6. Przez rzek¦, 1996 7. Dukla, 1997 8. Dwie sztuki (telewizyjne) o ±mierci, 1998 9. Jak zostaªem pisarzem (próba autobiograi intelektualnej), 1998 10. Dziewi¦¢, 1999 11. Moja Europa. Dwa Eseje o Europie zwanej rodkow¡, 2000 (with Jurij Andruchowycz) 12. Tekturowy samolot, 2000 13. Opowie±ci wigilijne, 2000 (with Olga Tokarczuk and Jerzy Pilch) 14. Zima, 2001 15. Jad¡c do Babadag, 2004 16. Noc. Sªowia«sko-germa«ska tragifarsa medyczna, 2005 17. Fado, 2006 18. Ciemny las, 2007 19. Dojczland, 2007 20. Czekaj¡c na Turka, 2009 21. Taksim, 2009 22. Dziennik pisany pó¹niej, 2010 23. Grochów, 2012 24. Nie ma ekspresów przy »óªtych drogach, 2013 25. Wschód, 2014 26. ycie to jednak strata jest. Andrzej Stasiuk w rozmowach z Dorot¡ Wodeck¡, 2015 27. Kucaj¡c, 2015 28. Osioªkiem, 2016 29. Kroniki beskidzkie i ±wiatowe, 2018 30. Przewóz, 2021
26 / 64 Andrzej Stasiuk in English
1. The White Raven (Serpent's Tail, 2001) 2. Tales of Galicia (Twisted Spoon 2005) 3. Nine (Harcourt, 2007) 4. Fado (Dalkey Archive 2009) 5. On the Road to Babadag (Harcourt Brace US, Harvill Secker UK, 2011), 6. Dukla (Dalkey Archive, 2011).
27 / 64 Andrzej Stasiuk's literary works all the translations
1. German (19) 2. French (16) 3. Czech (10) 4. Ukrainian (10) 5. Hungarian (9) 6. Spanish (7) 7. Swedish (7) 8. English (6) 9. Russian (6) 10. Slovakian (6) 11. Slovenian (5) 12. Bulgarian (5) 13. Italian (4) 14. Croatian (3) 15. Romanian (2) 16. Dutch (1)
28 / 64 Andrzej Stasiuk awards & prizes
• Award of the Kultura Foundation (1994) • Ko±cielski Prize (1995) • Twin Towns Toru«-Getynga S.B. Linde Award (2002) • Nike Literary Prize (2005, Jad¡c do Babadag) • A. Stifer Prize for Writers from Central Europe (2005) • Gdynia Literary Award (2010, Taksim) • Award of the Minister of Culture and National Heritage for lifetime achievement (2011) • Slovenian International Literary Award Vilenica (2008) • Warsaw Literary Award in the eld of prose (2015) • Central Europe Literary Award Angelus (2015, Wschód) • Austrian State Prize for European Literature (2016)
29 / 64 Literature of periphery
30 / 64 Literature of periphery in Poland
Literature of periphery (Hubert Orªowski) • Bruno Schulz, Stanisªaw Vincenz, Marek Nowakowski, Sokrat Janowicz, Zygmunt Haupt
31 / 64 Literature of periphery in US
• John Steinbeck, William Faulkner
32 / 64 Forms of periphery in the work of Stasiuk
33 / 64 Biographical periphery
34 / 64 Biographical periphery social transition
Dad was one of the millions who participated in this migration of peoples from the countryside to the cities. (...) The city tempted him with its possibilities. He built a house in the suburbs quite quickly, there was a garden around it, and in winter we fed the deer.2
2Life, however, is a loss 2015 35 / 64 Biographical periphery social transition
Peasants' sons and grandsons came from the lost vil- lages to turn into workers. They changed from villagers to city dwellers. Just like my father.3
They didn't smell the stables. They didn't tradge along the furrow of the potato. Mother used perfume. They had an adapter and vinyl records with Poªomski and Kunicka4
3There are no expresses on the yellow roads 2013 4East 2014 36 / 64 Biographical and geographical periphery: A village
In those days, there were no garbage cans in the villages. There was also no garbage. You bought all sorts of things, but not much was left of them. The sugar was left over into paper bags that could be burned in an oven or used again. The vinegar, oil, and vodka bottles could be sold at a store for a fairly substantial prot. You could also use them to store cherry and raspberry juices made at home.5
5Fado 2006 37 / 64 Biographical and geographical periphery
I was a city boy (Fado 2006)
• the suburbia of a big city vs. village suburbia vs. center • 38 / 64 Social periphery
39 / 64 Economics of scarcity vs. asceticism
There was always something missing. Either beer, or mugs or cash. We thought it was normal and it will always be. We didn't want to change anything6
6How I Became a Writer 1998 40 / 64 Money vs. music
We never talked about money. We had more important matters. Money is really shit. We argued till we dropped out, but never about these things. We jumped in our eyes about who was better: whether Oscar Peterson or Erroll Garner7
7How I Became a Writer 1998 41 / 64 Desertion
Actually, I was about to go back, but I changed my mind. Just like I used to think before going to school and then before leaving the bus at the stop where was my workplace. Just general discouragement like: fuck, I'm not going... Something was swarming in my head, freedom, that wear long hair and smoke cigarettes, but in fact I had a fucking bout of boredom and disaection of the reality available in this particular form.8
8How I Became a Writer 1998 42 / 64 Political periphery
43 / 64 Communist era
There was the middle of communism. I don't remember anybody complaining. The people knew worse masters and remembered the times of true slavery. [. . . ] I read about Chinese poverty and nibbled on a dry sausage.9
Peasants and paupers from generations, now they were eating slowly and without saying a word. With no fear of running out10 Writer's grandfather He was given a plenty of land, he no longer had to save kerosene, and in the municipal oce he drank with ocials as an equal. He did not bend his spine in front of anyone, he did not stand at anyone's door with a cap in his hand. The gentry are gone, the rich are gone. [...] The new authorities called him Mr. Klonowski11 9Journal written later 2010 10 East 2014 44 / 64 11East 2014 East, West, and personal identity
During a travel through Kazakhstan: I couldn't remember the rst time I saw Vanishing Po- int. Did they let it show in communism at all? Perhaps as an example of capitalist enslavement of the individual? Maybe. Well, it's a movie of the kind you know, even if you haven't watched it. You know them like an old recur- ring dream. The Challenger had gearshift as long as the one in a tractor. Kowalski sometimes looked like Dylan in the mid-1970s. A Californian policewoman at command headquarters asks, Can anyone pronounce his name?12
12On a donkey, 2016 45 / 64 East, West, and personal identity
I was a child of communism and American pop culture13
13On a donkey, 2016 46 / 64 Critics of communism
Speeches of communist leaders It was hard to imagine boredom, stillness and immo- bility in more perfect form. [...] For me, a pupil of the middle olish People's Republick, the revolution will always take the form of an ugly face speaking with a dead tongue in the dead light of the TV set.14 In an airport at Bratsk, Russia Here I found traces of an experiment on a global scale. Communism was not a materialist revolution. It was es- sentially anti-materialist. It tried to invalidate matter, to negate its usefulness, its necessity15
14Cardboard Plane, 2000 15East 2014 47 / 64 Political periphery
• Communism vs. capitalism • national homogeneity of Poland, contrasted to the melting pot of nations of south-central Europe
48 / 64 Cultural periphery
49 / 64 Czarne Publishing House: Woªowiec 2004
50 / 64 Houghton Mi in Harcourt 2011
51 / 64 On the Road to Babadag
travel phenomenology "It is good to come to a country you know practically nothing about. Your thoughts grow still, useless. Eve- rything must be rebuilt. In a country you know nothing about, there is no reference point. You struggle to asso- ciate colors, smells, dim memories. You live a little like a child, or an animal. Objects and events may bring things to mind, but in the end they remain no more than what they are in fact.16
16On the Road to Babadag: Travels in the Other Europe 52 / 64 Central Europe
The World of On the Road to Babadag: Travels in the Other Europe
53 / 64 R s, inari
R s, inari a place of birth of Emil Cioran
54 / 64 Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran (1911-1995)
55 / 64 Andrzej Stasiuk's Europe
There is approximately three hundred kilometers in a straight line between my Woªowiec and Warsaw. Of co- urse, I cannot resist the temptation to draw a three hun- dred kilometer circle around Woªowiec to dene my central Europe. (...) Inside there is a piece of Belarus, quite a lot of Ukraine, decent and comparable spaces of Romania and Hungary, almost all of Slovakia and a piece of the Czech Republic. And about a third of the Motherland. There is no Germany, no Russia - which I accept with some surprise, but also with a discreet, atavistic relief.17
17My Europe 2000 56 / 64 Andrzej Stasiuk's Europe
57 / 64 Germany
58 / 64
Dojczland 2007 Germany
They bring diamonds from the West because there's nothing else there. They bring cars because East needs nothing else from West. The cars nished their days in the sands of Mongolia18
18Night 2005 59 / 64 Germans
They will employ Turks, Slavs and Asians to run their own country, and they will nally have a rest - because whatever it is, they, the Germans, have worked the most hard work of all Europeans in history. So they deserve rest.19
19Dojczland 2007 60 / 64 Germans in Pole's Eyes
I did not hear that they were friends with the Germans. The Germans were not suitable for friendship. They rece- ived German benets, but in their stories the Germans did not appear as people. At most as employers, policemen or ocials. a much nicer country if there were no Germans in it.20
20Dojczland 2007 61 / 64 Germany and America
However, Germany is a bit of America. Most will be oended, but I'll stick with mine. The Germans are Ame- ricans at a slightly slower speed. Americans who had Lu- ther, so they don't think they were born yesterday. The Americans who had Hitler and therefore are not so hey forward.21 Germany was something like America for me. Some force was bursting it. It felt exactly in places like big truck terminals or highway junctions. Or railway junctions. In places where accumulated, compressed energy ows22
21Dojczland 2007 22Dojczland 2007 62 / 64 We, the East
We are naive, simple-hearted and gullible here in the East. Ideas come to us and we believe them as true. We believed in communism and went to prisons for it. Then we believed in anti-communism, and in its name we were imprisoned by hundreds and thousands. I got imprisoned for rock'n'roll.23
23My Europe 2000 63 / 64 The end
Thank you for your attention!
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